


Given Time

by Quanna



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Depression, Family Issues, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Other, Post-Episode: s08e12 Death in Heaven, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pregnancy Scares, Queerplatonic Relationships, Suicidal Thoughts, Therapy, queerplatonic whouffaldi, unsuccesful therapy session
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-09
Updated: 2015-01-09
Packaged: 2018-03-06 20:32:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3147671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quanna/pseuds/Quanna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>An almost pleasant numbness blanketed her as she waited for her best friend in a coffee shop. When he finally sat opposite her, big sad eyes beaming as he told her he’d found his home, she couldn’t ask him back, no matter how much she needed him. Pretending she was fine instead came easy; he’d taught her well. </i>
</p><p> </p><p>Clara tries to deal with life post Death in Heaven.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Given Time

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in few hours when I was in a pretty bad headspace. It's not a happy fic, please take care. 
> 
> Trigger warnings for: canonical character death (Danny's), depression, brief mention of self-harm, suicidal thoughts, implied ptsd, lgbt-related family issues, pregnancy scare, and Clara misunderstanding her therapist. 
> 
> As ever, thanks to the people who helped me with this. You know who you are.

**Given time**

 

She didn’t think of it as pretending, not at first anyway. Like everyone else, she thought of it as mourning. They gave her a week after the funeral to sort things out. But Danny didn’t come back like he was supposed to. Didn’t sort anything, only left her with his guilt complex shaped like a terrified child who’d been dead for several years and didn’t speak English. Standing there talking to his ghost, she thought she should probably hate him.

She had enough sense to call UNIT instead of the police to come pick the boy up, left him standing in the hallway while she went to the bathroom and wiped away her tears. A single buzz of the intercom and a code word later, and three soldiers trying hard to be discrete knocked on the door. The child screamed when he saw them, and she dragged her nails over her arm to avoid doing the same. They found him under the table, rocking back and forth, whimpering. They sedated him and carried him out, reassuring her he wasn’t hurt and they’d keep her updated. She thanked them and pretended she appreciated it.

The heavy silence after the door closed turned her stomach and she made for the toilet, knees hitting the cold tiles hard. Nothing, body physically and emotionally empty. A scrunched up silver package fell from her pocket as she shifted, resolutely binning it with shaking hands. The start of her new prescription had coincided with the funeral and she’d never picked it up after. It wasn’t so much the realisation she was late that threw her, as the realisation she hadn’t noticed until now. The possible implication of it sent another wave of nausea through her, and she curled up on the tiled floor, senseless tears soaking her sleeves.

Kate Stewart woke her in the afternoon with a phone call, telling her the boy didn’t speak and they were still trying to identify him, but physically he was okay. They could arrange for her to see him, if she wanted. She declined; voice breaking as she tried to explain she didn’t need another ghost in her life. Kate didn’t question it, and she remembered she wasn’t the only one who lost a very dear friend and colleague that day.

An almost pleasant numbness blanketed her as she waited for her best friend in a coffee shop. When he finally sat opposite her, big sad eyes beaming as he told her he’d found his home, she _couldn’t_ ask him back, no matter how much she needed him. Pretending she was fine instead came easy; he’d taught her well. She hugged him and hid her face in his shoulder, trying to memorise his smell just so she could keep something of him with her.

That night her nightmares drove her out of bed and onto the balcony, looking up at the polluted sky with red-rimmed eyes. Single heart racing, she felt like screaming into the night. She went back to bed instead, screams muffled by the pillows.

 

The test read negative.

 

Her first day back was so heavily clouded in a thick fog she couldn’t fully reconstruct it. She tried to pretend, but the headmaster told her they’d give her another couple of weeks, and scribbled down the number of their partner’s therapist. Talking helped, they reassured her. She didn’t understand how she was supposed to talk when she couldn’t even feed herself, but she smiled and thanked them anyway.

The child, it turned out, was long since orphaned, with no immediate family left. UNIT discreetly gave him a new name and passed him on to a facility specialising in the care of children with war traumas. They’d keep an eye on him for as long as they felt fit, and she could always enquire. She thought she should probably feel sorry for him.

Three times she almost called her friend back anyway. The first was when she’d woken up from a happy dream, and realised she lived high enough to jump from the balcony.

All she got from the therapist was how much better everyone else in her situation had been at loving. He urged her to go back home for a while, be amongst supportive family. There was little support in her family, but that was something she’d locked very deeply into a closet a long time ago and wasn’t about to confront now. So she did as she was told and called to ask if she could stay for Christmas.

The second time was when the therapist called her foreign travelling friend a story, and she didn’t have to pretend she believed it.

She took her motorcycle all the way up to Blackpool to avoid the crowds on the train. Only once did the sound of a lorry claxon send her to the hard shoulder, where she had to take off her helmet and breathe deeply to force down the panic in her guts. It was an improvement on the traffic in London.

The third was as she came to a halt in front of her dad’s house, forcing everything she was into something more acceptable.

 

***

 

She thought she should probably feel guilty about having missed him more than she missed Danny. His infinite ship hummed a familiar welcome in her mind,  and he was practically dancing around the console, red lining flashing every time he twirled. She took a step towards the centre and he stilled, a rare genuine smile lighting up his face.

“Welcome home.”

In a second, six months of emptiness caught up with her and she was sobbing, her entire frame shaking. His eyebrows knit in confusion as he disappeared from view, reappearing a moment later with two deep blue fuzzy blankets. He draped one around himself, covering his hands, then wrapped her up in the other with utmost care. When her legs gave way he stepped close and caught her, gently lowering them both to the floor and waiting for her to nod before drawing her to him. She cried until her head ached and the tears stopped coming, and he murmured her name as she worked through all the guilt, grief and regret, face buried in the blankets against his chest. The TARDIS hummed a lullaby, parking them out in the vortex, out of harm’s way.

Eyes red and puffy, she drew back and apologised, warning him she was a mess and she needed a lot of time. He waved off her apology and gestured around: he had a time machine, and they’d happily give her all the time she needed.

**Author's Note:**

> I'll write something properly queerplatonic soon, but I had to get this out of my system first.


End file.
